Noted in Passing

Jody Powell, who died today at 65, was President Jimmy Carter's press secretary. He was a fairly laid-back professional schmoozer who doubled in campaign years as Carter's Knight Visible on the chicken-and-peas circuit.

I was not Harkin's press security those days — or I still was, but I was disqualified by contempt for the fifth estate and annoyed by the amount of spin my job entailed. So Barry Piatt was taking over reins I never realized I'd relinquished, and I was still a member emeritus of the afterhours blue smoke and mirrors staff gatherings. You'd hear things...

Like, Jody Powell briefing JF† about what to with the ton of paper a fairly safe incumbent Representative gets from constituents who want him to "Gee, pass this on to Jimmy, wouldja? Just an idea I've been working on."

Powell said, "By all means send it to the White House. But we have a system."

If the letter (package, tome, brief, white paper, etc.) was from Nobody, just FORWARD it on.

If the letter (etc.) was being passed on as a favor from Tom to Tom's contituent, mark it REFERRED TO WHITE HOUSE.

If the letter was germane, and credentialed, like from a Nobel Prize winning Iowan such as Norman Borlaug, mark it RESPECTFULLY FORWARDED.

If the letter was a pure gift from some obscure Iowa State University economics professor likely be useful to the White House, if it came with Tom's personal recommendation and/or it was a favor repaid to Jimmy Carter — mark it RESPECTFULLY REFERRED.

Powell was more succint, but that was the gist. I remembered that policy. It seemed odd to me. It had a certain quirkish oddity, like it was scratched out by leprechauns on the teak bartops of Tir na Nog. I drank me mug o' porter.

So far as I know, the loose cannons on Harkin's Congressional staff only sent one RESPECTFULLY REFERRED package to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. without Tom's knowledge. All the rest, if any, went through channels. And if some Ph.D. at Iowa State got his C.V. burnished a bit, I'd be in no position to know. It woulda bin a firing offense, did anyone ever ken the pookah. Truth is, nobody could help Carter, but he had a few friends.

Bye, Jody. You were weird. I mean that in a good sense...

†John Fitzpatrick, Harkin's A.A. at the time, and/or Campaign Manager, depending on the season

Harkin Gets HELP

U. S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) will chair the late Ted Kennedy's Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

Harkin is giving up his Ag committee chores, shedding no tears; he's always considered Ag one of those "take a deep breath" duties to Iowa since 1975 — a task he's performed honorably and well. Simple seniority has put him in the right place at the right time to carry health reform forward, and that is a role he'll regard as the capstone of his career, if he pulls it off. Harkin regards health issues with a deep, personal and abiding passion.

On the other side of the aisle, I'm hearing the first rumblings from the hustings that maybe Chuck Grassley has lost it and begun to dodder a bit in his old age.

Grassley can't have it both ways. Either he's a country lawyer on the Hill, or he's Elmer Fudd pulling fantastic twaddle out of his ass for the folks back home. For years, he couldn't afford to let on that he actually had brains — us bumpkins would nod knowingly to each other and say, "You know, he's smarter than he looks!" — but then Republicans won a Senate majority a few years ago and gave him R-e-s-p-o-n-s-i-b-i-l-i-t-y.

Now that Grassley's got brains (and, brother, nothing succeeds like letting the cat out of a bag it was never in), he can't afford to let on that they're about as scrambled as a country breakfast at the old tractor pull — where anyone with a camera in their phone is a YouTube journalist to document it. If he wants it both ways, his days on that lunch stool at the A&K diner are just about up.

(Just remembered. The A&K, a nice Mom and Pop Greek restaurant about four blocks from the Capital back in the day, is no more.)

The 1977 Harkinistas

This is my copy of Susie's photo of our old Harkinista band, back in 1977. I'm not in the picture ;-)

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selfportrait

An old photograph...
My world has changed — the joke is
how I stayed the same.

That, of course, is an American lowball haiku, the kind the Japanese (and all urban haiku cognoscenti) hate. Aside from the terribly strict 5-7-5 syllable structure, it's just an irritant because it lacks all the standard haiku elements, especially mood, Aha-erlebnis and impersonal reference to nature, seasons and passing time. I like the form because it's hard to compress sufficient sarcasm and cyanide into such a small venue, especially using English free verse prosodic conventions like sprung rhythm, chime and wit.

Here's another example:

Mattress wisdom, this!
   The more refined the princess,
      The harder the pea.

Alan Watts talked about a variant form called senryu which is supposed to be less reverent, more personal and Zen-like, but in actual practice the norms of the form are just as preposterously precious as haiku.

Nobody likes my
   senryu — I can toss them off
      Like toilet paper!

For the true ancient Japanese flavor, haiku should be sung in violently strained, ingressive masculine tonalities with a few slow ridiculous dance steps and fan flourishes worthy of a matador's cape. The kabuki of such moments is deeply impressive. This is the true やまとだましい (Japanese spirit) that, in modern times, has given us karaoke.

Here in the West, we like haiku — with the reverential awe filtered out, of course. The best Western example of the style, as adopted by us Beat Zen film noir devotees, is Roy Batty's death poem in Ridley Scott's 1982 film, Blade Runner. Very effective. Truly pathetic. And, O Ultimate Transcendence, not really a haiku.